


Ten Years Gone

by MittenWraith



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anniversary, Castiel/Dean Winchester Anniversary, Dean's Top 13 Zepp Traxx Mixtape, Feelings, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-12 21:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16003634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittenWraith/pseuds/MittenWraith
Summary: Ten years after Cas first pulled Dean out of Hell, they both realized that somewhere along the way, they'd saved each other.





	Ten Years Gone

Another morning, another nightmare. Dean was awake far too early again. Every time he closed his eyes, he eventually ended up feeling trapped in the twisted memories of Michael controlling his body. He’d woken up thrashing-- fighting against the iron grip Michael had kept on him-- more often than not since he’d been freed. Only now he’d wake up thrashing under the weight of his blankets, shivering in a cold sweat.

It took a few minutes to calm his pounding heart, and Dean lay in bed staring up at his ceiling waiting for the memories to subside. They never really went away completely, but at least when he was awake he could pretend they did for a little while. It was useless thinking about going back to sleep, so as usual, Dean got out of bed, pulled on his robe and slid his feet into his slippers. If he couldn’t sleep-- or just didn’t want to go through it all again so soon-- he’d do what he’d done every morning since he’d been back.

It was usually quiet before six in the morning at the bunker. Cas would either be in the library reading, or maybe in his room, or else out walking around outside. He’d told Dean he liked to watch the sunrise sometimes. If Sam wasn’t still sleeping, he’d be out doing Sam stuff, like running or granola harvesting or whatever. Dean shivered at the thought and made his way to the kitchen, relatively sure he wouldn’t bump into anyone before he could get a few cups of coffee down and at least manage to present himself as a passable facsimile of a human being.

As he neared the kitchen, Dean’s steps slowed. The unmistakable aromas of breakfast wafted down the hall from the open door, and he could hear the sizzle of bacon frying in a pan. He debated for a minute whether or not to turn around and go back to his room for an hour or two, even if that meant risking falling back asleep again. Then again, unless Sam had developed a secret bacon addiction he was trying to cover up by eating it at this unholy hour, Dean was relatively certain it was Cas in the kitchen. As soon as he had that thought, he was struck by the reminder that Cas didn’t even eat at all. But there was no one else it could be. He heaved a sigh, tightened the belt of his robe, and resigned himself to facing the mystery fry cook.

Dean peered around the door frame and caught a glimpse of Cas standing at the stove, intently focused on his work and humming quietly to himself. He leaned back against the wall in the hall and tried to process what he’d seen. Cas had removed his coat and jacket. They lay draped over the end of the counter along with his tie. He’d even rolled up his sleeves. The counter was a mess of ingredients-- eggs, milk, flour, and several bowls spattered with what looked like the remains of  multiple attempts to make pancakes. And strangest of all was why Cas was apparently cooking himself up a huge breakfast in the first place.

Dean took another quick glimpse into the kitchen just to make sure he was really seeing this and it wasn’t another variation of one of his fucked up dreams, but nope. It was all apparently real. His dreams that started out all domestic like this never featured such a mess. Everything would be perfect, until nothing was perfect, and Michael would rip him away from his fantasy of domestic bliss and fling him into yet another nightmare. This imperfect scene had to be real, right down to the smell of slightly burnt bacon and Cas humming what sounded a hell of a lot like slightly off-key Zeppelin.

Dean slowly nodded, peeled himself off the wall, and decided this was unusual enough to investigate further. At the very least, it still beat the hell out of going back to sleep.

He stood in the kitchen doorway for a few moments, debating whether to announce his presence in any way or to wait for Cas to acknowledge him first. He couldn’t really believe that Cas hadn’t heard him out in the hall, shuffling around, breathing. Then again, he did seem intently focused on his cooking. And his humming.

Dean listened long enough to definitively identify the song. Ten Years Gone. So Cas had been listening to the tape he’d given him. It gave Dean a ridiculously warm feeling to think Cas had not only liked the tape enough to listen to it once, but to have listened to it long enough to memorize the songs on it and think of them when he was concentrating on something else. He felt  _ seen _ . It had been a damn good gift.

Cas began mumbling the lyrics--  _ dewey eyes now sparkle, senses growing keen _ \-- and turned to pick up a plate from the counter behind him. He froze with his hand outstretched, his singing silenced as he stared wide-eyed at Dean.

Dean cleared his throat and slowly moved into the room, keeping the counter between them. “Heya Cas. Is this what you get up to in the middle of the night? You training to be a line cook or something?”

“Dean, you’re awake early,” Cas replied. “I wasn’t expecting you to be up yet.”

Dean shrugged and leaned across the counter to pick up a coffee mug, and then headed across the room to pour himself a cup. “No earlier than most days, lately. This is the first time I caught you cooking, though.” He finished pouring his coffee and then turned to see Cas frowning at him as he took his first sip.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?”

Dean shrugged again and walked back to the counter, daring to move around to Cas’s side this time to get a closer look at his cooking. He examined the plate of bacon and the growing stack of pancakes as an excuse not to look at Cas while he answered.

“Yeah, every time I close my eyes, it’s like Michael’s got me trapped in my own head again.”

Cas tentatively reached out a hand towards Dean’s face, but then hesitated. “I could try to help you with that if you’d like.”

Dean shook his head but smiled gratefully. “Maybe later. I’m awake now, and it looks like you’re gonna need help eating all this. We expecting company for breakfast?”

Cas fidgeted and let his hand drop, busying himself with flipping a pancake out of the pan onto the stack and pouring in another. “I, uh… it was supposed to be a surprise.”

“What, for me?” Dean asked, surprised. “You were making me surprise breakfast?”

“I was,” Cas replied, waving a hand over to the table where Dean only now noticed a tray set up with a glass of orange juice, a pitcher of warm maple syrup, and a tiny vase with a single daisy in it that Cas must’ve picked down by the road.

Dean opened his mouth to make a lewd joke about what he did to deserve breakfast in bed, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud and sighed instead. He squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling to mock his own feelings that early in the morning. There was only so much repressing he could handle at a time, and he was still fighting off the shock of waking from his nightmare. Crushing down his feelings for Cas under a blanket of bravado was just too much self-flagellation for six a.m. That didn’t stop his curiosity, though.

“So, what’s the occasion?” Dean eventually asked.

“It’s an anniversary, of sorts,” Cas replied, still with his back to Dean. “Ten years ago today, I raised you from perdition.”

Dean really wished he’d been sitting down.  _ Ten years _ . Hell. Well, that at least explained Cas’s song choice. It was a little overwhelming to think it had been that long. More than a quarter of his life spent on the wrong side of his trip to Hell. And still only a quarter of the time he’d actually spent in Hell. He didn’t really want to dwell on horrors anymore, and was grateful when Cas spoke, pulling him out of Hell all over again.

“We’ve known each other for ten years, Dean. It seemed like something worth… commemorating.”

Dean wasn’t sure, but it had seemed like Cas was gonna say something other than  _ commemorating _ . Maybe… celebrating? Sure he had to go through Hell to meet Cas, but in those ten years Cas had become the best friend he’d ever had. He’d lost Cas so many times, but they’d always found each other again, and he didn’t even want to think about life without him anymore.

Yeah, he was something a little more than a best friend to Dean. If only Dean could work up the nerve to do anything about it.

“Yeah, that’s definitely worth something a little special, Cas,” Dean replied, smiling when Cas looked up at him with relief.

Cas took a deep breath, nodded, and then went back to finishing up his last pancake. “I intended to bring this to you in bed. I know that’s a human custom for special occasions.”

“Yeah, we do that. Sorry I ruined the surprise.”

“You didn’t ruin anything, Dean,” Cas replied, sounding adamant about that before going a bit flustered again. “You can still take it back to your room if you’d prefer. You don’t have to, since you’re already here, but if you wanted to. There’s, uh… I’d planned a... “ He frowned. “This isn’t going like I’d planned.”

“Hey,” Dean started, closing the distance between them and laying a hand on Cas’s shoulder. “It’s fine. I mean, I had no idea today was the day until you told me, so I figure you’re already at least a few points up on me.”

Cas looked at him, confused. “It’s not a contest, Dean. There’s no score to keep.”

Dean couldn’t help but smile at that, but he pressed on. “I meant that things might not be going how you planned, but at least you had a plan, you know? I didn’t even remember it was today.”

“You’ve had other things on your mind lately,” Cas said. “I understand.”

“Yeah,” Dean replied, glancing over his shoulder at the calendar pinned to the wall and frowning. “Not to mention I don’t remember meeting you until the nineteenth. Or maybe it was the twentieth by the time we got that barn all painted up and you came crashing in and shattered all the light bulbs.”

Cas just blinked at him for a minute and then smiled. “You shot me, and then stabbed me.”

Dean laughed at that and squeezed Cas’s shoulder. “Yeah, how fucking rude, right?”

Cas tried not to dislodge Dean’s hand as he plated up the rest of his breakfast, but it was inevitable as he crossed the room to arrange everything on the tray. “Everything has changed since then, hasn’t it.”

“Rivers always reach the sea,” Dean muttered under his breath, closing his eyes and wondering how much Cas’s motivations that morning had been based on the song he’d been singing. It hurt to think he might be reading this wrong now, but it hurt even more to think about rejecting the possibility out of hand.

“What was that?” Cas asked.

“A line from the song you were humming when I walked in,” Dean replied, leaving it up to Cas where to take it from there.

Cas stiffened, standing up straight and then slowly turning around to face Dean as he set his mug down on the counter. “You heard me?”

Dean nodded, taking a deep breath and speaking quietly. “Yeah, I did. It was nice thinking you liked that tape enough to learn the songs on it. But, uh… seems like you really took it to heart.”

“Was that not your intention?” Cas asked, looking as uncertain as Dean had ever seen him. “Did you not want me to  _ take them to heart _ ?”

“No, Cas, It, uh...” Dean said, walking around the counter and stopping himself a foot shy of Cas. “I mean, that’s why I made you a tape in the first place.”

“Because you like that band and their music, and wanted me to be familiar with it,” Cas replied dubiously, clearly knowing he wasn’t addressing the whole point.

“Well, yeah,” Dean replied, resisting the urge to squirm under Cas’s intense gaze. “But there’s more to it than that.”

Cas’s stare only intensified at that, as if he were trying to pull the information directly from Dean’s mind. Dean wasn’t entirely sure Cas couldn’t do just that if he just thought it hard enough in his direction, but they’d had enough silent communications go astray over the years that it was really time to man up and say the words out loud.

“I picked those songs out especially for you, Cas,” he started, and then closed his eyes for a few seconds of reprieve from Cas’s laser focus. “They, uh, remind me of you. I thought they might remind you of me. In the same way.”

After a beat, in a hushed voice, Cas asked, “Even the one I was singing?”

Dean fought the urge to deny it, to run out of the room and pretend none of this had ever happened. He drew a long breath and nodded slowly. He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, but at least he hadn’t starting banging pots and pans together and screaming either. It was progress.

Cas stood there for a minute letting this revelation reach its full conclusion.  He had to be sure Dean really meant the whole song, and asked for lyrical confirmation. “Kind of makes me feel sometimes, didn’t have to go.”

Dean looked down at their feet and rocked his head from side to side as he shifted uncomfortably. Cas knew all the words, and understood what they meant. “I didn’t mean it as a dig or anything like that. I get why you had to leave sometimes, even if I didn’t like it. And I left you plenty, too. Sometimes life’s just shitty that way.”

“I’m never gonna leave you, Dean.” Cas replied, still quoting lyrics, but with the weight of a promise now.

Dean took a bit of courage from that declaration and met Cas’s eyes again. “Good. That’s good. I don’t think I could take it again.”

Cas sighed, looking relieved for a moment before edging back into uncertainty. “This is what I wanted to tell you over breakfast. Well, nearly.”

When Cas hesitated again, Dean picked up his mug and grabbed Cas’s sleeve, dragging him along to the table. “Well, then, let’s talk over breakfast.”

Dean sat down and pulled the tray around in front of him. He looked over the contents of the tray that Cas had arranged, smiling at the cheerful little daisy and then up at Cas, still standing at the end of the table.

“You gonna have some of this, too?” Dean asked, pouring maple syrup over the stack of pancakes and picking up his fork. “At least have some coffee. Don’t make me eat alone.”

Cas snapped into action, moving to pick up Dean’s nearly empty mug. Dean nodded, his mouth already full of pancakes, and Cas took the mug to refill it and pour one for himself.

“So, if I hadn’t interrupted your surprise, what did you have planned?” Dean asked while Cas was busy at the coffee pot.

Cas sloshed a bit of coffee onto the counter and wiped it up with a dishrag. He had to take a few deep breaths to steady himself before picking up both full mugs and making his way carefully back to the table. Dean had already made a dent in the bacon as Cas set their coffee down and took the seat opposite Dean. It didn’t help when Dean looked up at him expectantly, offering a little toast with his refreshed mug in thanks.

“How is it?” Cas asked, delaying the inevitable for a few more minutes.

Dean swallowed and set his mug down. “It’s great, Cas. You did great.”

Cas watched Dean eat. This had been part of his plan, he convinced himself. It hadn’t just been about what he’d wanted to talk to Dean about. He’d wanted to make Dean something he’d take pleasure in. By the noises he made as he crunched into the bacon and mopped up syrup with his pancakes, Dean certainly seemed to be enjoying it. Cas took another sip of his coffee and then set the mug down in front of him, cradling its warmth between his hands and running through the song again. It had been what gave him the courage to even consider this in the first place and he took comfort in the words now. He cleared his throat and launched into the speech he’d been preparing in his head for days. Years, maybe.

“Ten years ago today I raised you from perdition,” he began, and Dean looked up from eating.

“Yeah, I don’t think there’ll ever be a big enough thank you for that one.”

Cas acknowledged that with a small smile and looked down at his hands as Dean took another bite of his pancakes. “Neither of us knew then that we’d be… friends… ten years later.”

“Hell, back then I wasn’t even sure there’d be a ten years later at all,” Dean replied. “With the whole Apocalypse and everything.”

“It was a troubling time,” Cas said, frowning at the memory.

Dean laughed and nearly choked on pancakes. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

“But we persevered, through the Apocalypse and everything that came after,” Cas pressed on, forcing himself to stick to his plan. “We’ve endured Apocalypses, Purgatory, alternate universes, and multiple deaths and resurrections. We’ve not only become friends, but something more than that.”

Dean frowned and set down his fork at the mention of  _ multiple deaths _ . Because yeah, they’d endured all right, but only just. The last time Cas had died, it had nearly killed Dean as well. And he was pretty sure they were something more than friends, too. There was a good chance that this was what Cas was leading up to, and Dean debated whether to wait and hear him out or offer him a hand. This wasn’t easy for either of them. They’d been avoiding the subject for years, always some other bigger problem to deal with first. Ten years honestly seemed like long enough to put it off.

“Last time you died, it nearly destroyed me, Cas. I mean, I was literally dead on the ground, and the only reason I’m up and walking around again is because Billie needed me alive. If I hadn’t gotten that call from you that same night, I don’t know how much longer I would’ve lasted anyway. I know for a fucking fact that you’re more than just a friend, Cas. You’re one of the reasons I get up every morning.”

“Dean…” Cas started, stunned. He reached out across the table slowly and hesitantly rested his hand atop Dean’s, his fingers gripping tightly. “When I was… when I was in the Empty, after I woke up, there was an entity. A manifestation of the Empty. It knew me, my doubts, my fears.” He shuddered, thinking back to everything the Empty had attempted to torment him with. “It tried to convince me to go back to sleep, to let go of everything and sink into eternal nothingness. It showed me every failure, every regret. And it tore down every excuse I made.”

“Cas…” Dean started, turning his hand over and clasping Cas’s. Cas shook his head and didn’t let Dean interrupt.

“It tried to convince me that there was nothing for me here, nothing to come back to but disappointment. It exploited my deepest fears, and I fought back.”

Dean let that sink in, and then thought back over every conversation they’d had since Cas came back. He remembered brushing off Cas’s questions about why he’d been brought back with excuses about needing him. They’d both apparently had a lot more to say to each other.

Ten years was definitely long enough to wait.

“So, have you been disappointed since you’ve been back?” Dean asked quietly, staring down at their joined hands on the table between them.

“Occasionally,” Cas replied. “Disappointed in myself, mostly, for not telling you any of this sooner. For letting circumstances stop me from telling you how much you mean to me, Dean.”

Dean nodded, took a deep breath, and met Cas’s eyes. “I don’t think there’s words for that, Cas.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.”

“I guess I should try, too, huh? Stop letting Robert Plant try and talk for me.”   
Cas shrugged. “He wrote some apt words. But they also clarified something for me that I believe I’d been getting wrong for a long time.  _ Did you ever really need somebody? _ “ He started reciting the lyrics, and Dean’s heart stuttered, knowing what was coming. But he sat and listened as Cas kept going. “ _ And really need 'em bad. Did you ever really want somebody? The best love you ever had _ .”

Dean swallowed hard and nodded, feeling stripped bare under Cas’s intense stare.

“You tell me frequently you need me, and I assumed you needed me for some specific purpose, to be useful. But that isn’t what you meant, is it?”

Dean shook his head and bit his lip, and Cas sighed as the weight of all his fears fell away.

“That’s what brought me back, Dean. That’s what allowed me to push aside all my doubts and fight to come back. Because I feel the same way about you.”

Dean huffed out a choked breath, and his voice cracked as he spoke. “Is ten years too long to wait to do something about that?”

“I hope not,” Cas replied. “It seems like exactly the right time to do something about it.”

Dean stood up, pulling Cas to his feet by his hand and wrapping him up in a hug. “I shoulda done this when you came back. Hell, I shoulda done it years ago.” He let Cas go far enough that he could look into his eyes, to make sure this was really what Cas wanted. There was nothing but joy and anticipation reflected back to him, so Dean leaned in and kissed him, pouring ten years’ worth of feeling into it.

Cas sighed and held on, taking everything that Dean gave him and returning it as best he could. It may have been as impossible to put all their feelings into a single kiss as it had been to put them into words over the last ten years, but that didn’t stop them from trying. They finally broke apart and Dean leaned his forehead against Cas’s while he caught his breath.

“That was a long time coming.”

“It was worth dying and coming back for.”

Dean laughed at that and then glanced around at the mess in the kitchen before turning back to Cas. “So you said you planned to have this conversation in my room?”

“That was the plan, yes.”

“Huh. That would’ve been more convenient.” Dean let Cas go and took his hand, leading him out of the kitchen and down the hall. “Sorry I fucked up the plan, but breakfast was great.”

“Aren’t we going to clean up?” Cas said, casting a glance back over his shoulder at the mess he’d made of Dean’s kitchen.

“It can wait,” Dean replied, giving Cas’s hand a squeeze. “I waited ten years for this. The dishes aren’t going anywhere in the next few hours. And I got a plan for us, too.”

Cas looked back at Dean, smiling like he hadn’t seen him in years, a huge weight lifted from him. “I love you, Dean.”

“Yeah, I know. I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is obviously from the Led Zeppelin song. This is my serious 10th DeanCasVersary fic. If you need something slightly sillier, I offer you [His True Love Was The C](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15910824). I couldn't let an occasion like this pass unremarked. The anniversary so nice I fic'ed it twice. :P
> 
> You can always find me on the tumblr if you need to cry about all of this. I'm [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com).
> 
> (I'm also reblogging a lot of deancasversary stuff, all tagged "the deancasversary" in case you need to just scroll and weep :P)


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